sandy was a devastating storm. many lives were lost as a result of the storm bond seven in my state of maryland. eight billion people on the east coast of the united states at some time were without power at the results of sandy. maryland fare much better than our surrounding states. we sent a lot of our resources to help our friends in new york and new jersey and other states that were impacted, but it was the severe storm for the people in maryland. the high sustained winds were unprecedented in our state. 70 mile an hour winds, hour upon hour upon hour, doing incredible damage to our state. heavy rains. we had record number amount of rains, nine inches in the coastal area. that caused extreme coastal flooding, storm surges worked severe, waves were as high as seven feet. i want to talk specifically about the 2 regions of our state in which people are still trying to recover from the severity of the storm. one is western maryland. we were experiencing nine inches of rain on the east coast of maryland, western par